Edison Electric dictaphone shaver.

[debndunk]

I'm so glad I joined this forum it's a must for relative novices like me.Thanks to all you guys.Gordon.

[debndunk]

WOW What luck I've just bought an edison dictaphone shaver on Ebay, fingers crossed it wont need too much doing to it. When it arrives I'll post some pic's of it. Gordon

[Chuck]

While we are on the topic of shavers:

My old Dictaphone shaver from 1924 does a great
job and there's no big problem getting the
chip-chute adjusted so that most of the shavings
go down the chute into the drawer.

It does tend to get clogged up and needs to be
cleaned out and blown out frequently, but it
usually works pretty well.

I've had no end of difficulty, however, with
the shavings generally not going down the chip
chute on my newer much later Dictaphone "Cameo"
model shaver.

I have tried every cutter angle and adjustment
I can think of, as well as every combination
of chip-chute height away or closer to the
wax cylinder. All to no avail.

Once in a while it will send a nice stream of
shavings down the chute as it should, but soon
it will be sending them up and out, and all
over the place again.

Finally, I just took the darn chip chute off
and got the vacuum cleaner and used the
narrow attachment and held it up close to
the cutter and shaved a bunch that way.
That works, it is totally clean.

I even filed the opening a tiny bit on the chip
chute but that did not help.

Any ideas? Anyone ever have similar shaver
problems? Why would one shaver work so well
that way, and another be so impossible to get
properly adjusted?

Thanks, Chuck

[edisonphonoworks]

All of these shavers have a variable resistor, it has a cage and set screw, and by increasing the resistance it will slow it down. Do you use 220 in Australia? There is also a setting on the motor, remove the cover over the brushes you can make sure it is set for your cycles, and voltage, you loosen the screws and set the brushes where the instructions tell you to. I think your model has the wooden cabinet, and the resister might be on the very bottom of the cabinet, You though do lose some power when reducing the speed. However, you do not need as much power to shave cylinders that are trued up. I on the other hand shave cylinders that are raw and 2.35" in diameter down to 2.25" for the initial shave where the record seasons, and then when they are set for 30 days are further shaved to 2.196". For general shaving though a reduction in speed will be fine.

[debndunk]

I have been watching Victrola Guy on youtube and he used a dimmer switch to control the speed on his shaver. Gordon

[edisonphonoworks]

I am pretty sure that it will be much safer when these adjustments are made, it probably was running twice the RPM it is supposed, to, but I bet that makes shiny cylinders. You can adjust these things from crazy fast to almost a crawl, 400 rpm is probably a good safe speed that does a good job.

[Chuck]

Those lamp dimmers are very cheaply made and
are barely able to hold themselves together
controlling just the current of a lamp bulb
for which they are designed.

A universal motor such as these shavers have
presents not just a plain resistive load, but
it also has an inductive component to it as well.

These lamp dimmers are made to operate only
on a purely resistive load. Throwing the inductive load of a motor on one of these cheaply made dimmer switches is sure to cause the circuit in the dimmer to fail sooner or later. Just because you see some "guy" out
there on some videos using a dimmer switch to
operate a shaver motor does not mean it's a very good way to do it.

They used the variable resistor on those
originally for a reason. Part of that reason is that a rheostat is a very durable thing, as
long as its rated power dissipation is not
exceeded. They can take a beating and they
last a very long time.

The variable resistor (or rheostat) on my
Dictaphone "Cameo" shaver goes from 10 ohms
to 610 ohms. At around 280 ohms of it in
series with the motor, the motor just starts
to run. So, for this particular application
about half of the resistance never gets used.
The running range of that shaver is then
from 280 ohms (very slow) down to 10 ohms (full speed)

Operating on 120 volts AC, these motors do need
some resistance in series otherwise they run
too fast, and they will fly apart!

I had the slot covers on the armature of one of
those motors start turning sideways and sneaking out of the armature slots.
They started running against the field poles and making noise. Luckily I stopped in time, took the motor apart and put the slot covers back and glued them. Operating the motor at a slower speed prevents this.

Had it gone on that way just a little longer,
the windings would have come out of the slots
and gotten tangled around the armature.
That is the end of an armature winding, and
after that it has to be rewound.

Use a rheostat in series.

Chuck

[debndunk]

Well I'm no electrician and I was only passing on what I had seen someone do, and certainly not giving advice.Gordon

[Chuck]

Well it's just that a lamp dimmer might
work ok for awhile, but sooner or later will
most likely fail for a variety of reasons.

It won't hurt the motor. So try it if there
is not anything else available to use.

But, sure as the day is long, it will choose
to fail sometime when you really want to get
that blank shaved...

Chuck

[phonoman-antique]

That 1903 Edison shaver has me licking the screen.What a honey.